I think that I have a blocked plumbing vent. When I flush one toilet I get a “bubbling” in the adjacent bathroom toilet and by the end of a normal day at home the adjacent toilet water level in the bowl is nearly empty. I also have a problem with the sink not draining well.
I called my normal plumber and he doesn’t get onto a roof, no exceptions, but he gave me the name of a place that will look at it. I called them and they want $300 to go up on the roof and a minimum 2 hour charge at $175 an hour. That’s $650 just to get the guy to my house and no one is certain if it is a blocked vent.
Is it naive of me to think that I can fix this myself? I can rent a snake with a camera on the end of it or buy one of the new Milwaukee ones for a lot less than 650 and I know that any blockage that exists must be within 15 feet of the roof or I would have sewage backing up into my drains. We live in a fairly new development (< 10 years) so there aren’t mature trees that could have shed leaves down the vent. What are the typical things that cause vents to be blocked?
Should I just part ways with the $650 or should I take a crack at this myself first?
Thanks,
Scott
Replies
I'd get up on the roof (provided you are comfortable with being on a roof) with a powerful flashlight and have a look. The blockage is most likely near the roof. Careful, it could be a bee/hornet nest !
Good luck
Take your garden hose up and let it flow down. At least that way if it is a bees nest, they'll be slower getting out to you.
Thanks! It's cold enough here that the bees have started to slow down a bit, but it's a shallow pitch roof so I'll give it a shot.
Is it naive of me to think that I can fix this myself?
Not at all. If you can locate the blockage and have access to that section of vent stack in the attic it's a relatively easy fix even if you can't snake the blockage out of there.
Typical blockages in vent stacks are dead animals, bird's nests, beehives, squirrel caches, spider webs, etc.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not brought
low by this? For thine evil pales before that which
foolish men call Justice....
Can you get into the attic? At least verify that there IS a vent coming up from the toilets. And in theory, if you're handy, you could splice in a cleanout into the vent line.
But the symptoms you describe (especially the sink not draining well) are more apt to be due to a plain old blocked drain.
Blocked vents do occur, most often due to birds or squirrels, but they're really quite rare compared to ordinary drain blockages.
He's got siphoning in an adjacent toilet. That's not a blocked drain, unless they wet-vented the whole system when they built it. In which case, he has other problems, LOL.
I think his original diagnosis is probably correct.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....